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Graphics Card
Graphic Card ' What is a graphic card? ' Graphic card is an expansion card which displays images to the monitor. It’s also known as video card, accelerator card, display adapter, and numerous other terms. It’s one of the basic parts of a computer. A graphic card consist of a printed circuit board which have different parts include Graphics Processing Unit, Heat Sink, Video memory, RAMDAC ' Functions ' A graphic card allow computer to produce images faster and with more details. It has its own processor called GPU (graphical processing unit). It connects the monitor and motherboard in order to get the information from CPU. ' How did a graphic card works? ' Graphic card can take binary data from the CPU and turn it into a picture you can see. The CPU sends information about the image to the graphic card. The graphic card makes the decision how to use pixels to print the image on the screen. To create a 3-D image, the graphic card first creates a frame out of straight line. Then it fill in the remain pixels. When people play 3-D games, the computer always go through this process about sixty times per second. If there is no graphic card to do the necessary calculations, the work would be too much for computer to handle. A graphic card has four components to finish its work: l A motherboard to connect the data l A processor to decide what to do with each of the pixels on the screen l Memory to hold information of each pixel and store the complete image for a short time l A monitor to print the final result ' GPU ' GPU stands for graphics processing unit. GPU is a specific electronic circuit designed to analyze and memory to accelerate the producing of the image for output to a display. It uses special programming to analyze and use the data from CPU. It’s similar to CPU. However, a GPU is designed especially for the graphic calculations. A GPU produce lots of heat, so it always located near a fan. ' RAM ' When GPU produces images, it needs somewhere to hold the information and complete the image. It uses RAM (random access memory) for this purpose. RAM can store data of each pixel, its color and location on the screen. It holds the complete image until the time to display them. Video RAM always works in a very high speed and is dual ported which means the system can send input to it and get output from it at the same time. The RAM directly connects to the DAC (digital-to-analog converter). It also called RAMDAC. RAMDAC can translate the image into an analog single which the monitor can use. Depending on the bits used and the speed of the RAMDAC to transfer data, it will be able to support different kinds of display. Some graphic cards have multiple RAMDAC which means they can support more than one monitor at the same time. ' Connection ' Graphic cards connect to the computer through the motherboard. The motherboard gives power and let graphic card connect to the CPU. However, new graphic card always require more power than the motherboard can supply, so they also have another direct connect to the computer’s power supply. Connection between motherboard and graphic card usually through one of the three interfaces: l Peripheral component interconnect (PCI) l Advanced graphics port (AGP) l PCL Express (PCIE) The PCI Express is the newest of the three and it provides the fastest speed to transfer between motherboard and graphic card. It also supports using two graphic cards in the same computer. Most graphic cards have two monitor connections. One is DVI connector, which supports LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) screens, and the other one is VGA connector, which supports CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) screen. Some graphic card has two DVI connections instead, but that doesn’t mean it can’t use CRT screen. CRT screen can connect to DVI ports through an adapter. ' Choose a suitable gra phic card ' Lots of computer gamers look for a good graphic card because it could make game run faster and smoother. A good graphic card is easy to find. It has lots of memory and a fast processor. But a top level graphic card always provides more than most people really need. People who always use their computer for e-mail sending, word processing or web surfing can use a common graphic card instead of a high-end one. A mid-range graphic card is suitable for most of the casual gamers. The high-end graphic card is used for pro gamers or people who do lots of 3-D graphic works. However, it’s important to have a good graphic card even if a person is not a gamer, it makes people easier to watch HD movies or even do some video editing. There are 6 steps to find the suitable graphic card for your computer: 1. Decide what you want to do with the video card. To choose a suitable graphic card, you need to know how you want to use your computer. If you want to play games with full visual effects you will need to buy a high-end graphic card. If not, you can buy a middle one. 2. Know the type of slot you will be using. There are three types of slots on the motherboard-PCI Express, AGP, and PCI. You need to make sure the slots of the graphic card and motherboard are the same type. 3. Choose a good brand. The two most popular companies are ATI and Nvidia. They are two leading companies that make graphic chips. You can also find some good graphic card in major PC magazine and websites. 4. Choose a manufacturer. Most video cards can be bought from different multiple manufacturers. Different manufacturers offer different level of warranty and consumer service. You can find one which you are satisfied. 5. Choose a way to buy the graphic card. You can buy a graphic card either in a retail store or online store. You can always compare the price of same type of graphic card in the different stores. 6. Install the video card. The first step is open the computer case, remove the old graphic card and put new graphic card in the slot of your motherboard. If the graphic card has a separate power line, connect to the power of the computer and close the computer case. Then you need to install the driver for the card. There would be a instruction to tell you how to do that in the box of graphic card you bought. The last step is restarting the computer. You can also figure the graphic setting in the control panel. FPS An important measure of a card’s performance is its frame rate which is measured in FPS (frame per second). The FPS indicates how many complete image the graphic card can display every second. The human eyes can produce 25 frames each second, but most fast-action games requires at least 60 frames per second to produce a smooth animation. Two components of the frame rate are: Triangles or vertices per second which describes how quickly the card builds a wire frame image and pixel fill rate which describes how quickly it can fill in the pixels. The CPU and motherboard also affect the frame rate because a bad motherboard and CPU can’t have the same calculation speed as a fast graphic card Company ATI (was bought by AMD) and Nvidia are the two biggest companies which produce GPUs. Both of them develop their own advantage for GPU function. Nvidia offer many new technologies in its card include: l SLI (scalable link interface). It allows parallel processing by put several cards together, l PhysX support. It’s a real-time physics engine. it makes a huge increase in physics processing for many games. l Pure Video. It could make the image more clarity with minimal power and CPU using. l GPU Direct. When you want to process some data, it can help you get highest output and lowest latency. It supports accelerated communication with network and storage devices. l 3D Vision Surround. It’s the technology to support a 3-D game. It could get a complete view of the battlefield in real-time strategy games. l CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture). It is a parallel computing platform and programming model. It could get information from CPU or send information to CPU faster. They make significant effect for their graphic card. ATI also has its own advantage such as： l Vision engine. It’s a 3-D game engine and supports Dual Graphics. l Crossfire X. It’s another name for multi-GPU. It allows up to 4 for GPUs to work in one computer to improve the graphic performance. l Dual Graphics. This is the technology to put two graphic card in one computer to improve the graphic performance. l HD3D technology. It’s the similar technology as 3-D vision. Future development In the past, people have no chance to watch high definition video. Now graphic card has been around us like computer. In the future, we may see the GPU does most of the work in computer. CPU only tells GPU what to do. AMD is working on CPU-GPU fusion. The line between CPU and GPU will be more blurred as time goes on. Quiz 1. What’s GPU stands for? 2. If there is no graphic card in the computer, what’s bad effect? 3. Name two of the interfaces which connect motherboard and graphic card. 4. Name two biggest graphic card companies in the world. 5. ATI was bought by which company? 6. Which company is now working on CPU-GPU fusion? 7. Video RAM can’t receive information from CPU or send information to CPU at the same time. (True or False) 8. Size of a graphic card is an important measure of graphic card performance. (True or False) 9. Which devices do GPU hold and store the information when produce a image？A. ATI B. RAM C. Monitor 10. Where is graphic card located? A. In the computer case B. In the monitor C. Somewhere else